2012 month by month - December: Elections, billion dollar divorce and entente cordiale between PM and President

Between the final week of campaigning, the vote itself and the setting up of the new government, the parliamentary elections took up most of December. Elsewhere, there was another even bigger banking fraud and Romania's richest man was in the courts for divorce proceedings.

Romania's Asphalt King ran into trouble in December when he was charged with embezzling EU funds for road construction projects. As well as construction company Romstrade, Businessman Nelu Iordache also owns low cost airline Blue Air. Owner of Romanian low cost airline Blue Air, nicknamed Asphalt King, arrested for 29 days German rail transport giant Deutsche Bahn made a further investment in Romania in December, taking over a 70 percent share package in regional train company Regiotrans Brasov with an option to buy the remaining shares later. Deutsche Bahn already owned a goods train company in Romania. Deutsche Bahn takes over private regional railway company in Romania Using EU funds has been a bugbear for Romania and the country has only accessed a tiny fraction of the money available. After having funding for four Operational Programmes blocked due to irregularities in administration at one point, there was finally some good news in December. At the end of November 2012, the absorption rate had nearly doubled from the end of 2011. But at only a 9.72 percent absorption rate, the figure was still painfully low. Romania doubles EU fund absorption rate in one year, minimum 15% target to be reached by end of 2012 The parliamentary elections on December 9 gave the Social Liberal Union (USL) a huge majority and before all the votes had been officially counted it was clear that the USL had won a landslide victory. The results matched the figures suggested by opinion polls before the election with the USL taking nearly 60 percent of the vote and the Right Romania Alliance, which included the President's party the Democratic Liberal Union (PDL), only getting a little above 15 percent. Immediately after the elections, when the scale of the USL victory became clear, the Right Romania Alliance was disbanded. Landslide victory for Romania’s Social Liberal Union at general elections Romania elections 2012: First official figures show an even bigger Social Liberal Union victory